Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Not In Compliance With Ethics Agreement

In a statement issued by the Treasury Department, Bessent said he had completed all but 4% of the asset divestitures required by his ethics agreement.

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday he was working to divest illiquid personal assets including farmland by year-end after the Office of Government Ethics said he had not met deadlines in the ethics agreement he signed in January.

In a letter sent on Monday to Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, OGE Deputy Compliance Director Dale Christopher wrote that Bessent “has failed to timely comply with certain terms of the ethics agreement he signed” before taking office in late January.

The ethics office said it told Treasury ethics officials to remind Bessent “that it is his personal responsibility to avoid taking any action that could create a real or apparent conflict of interest with regard to his holdings,” the letter said.

Bessent, a key figure driving President Donald Trump’s economic agenda including tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation, signed an ethics agreement in January that pledged he would divest his Key Square Group hedge fund and other assets to avoid conflicts of interest. Many of the divestitures were to be completed by April 28.

In a statement issued by the Treasury Department, Bessent said he had completed all but 4% of the asset divestitures required by his ethics agreement.